Remembering George Carlin

It was on this day, June 22, in the year 2008, that legendary comedian George Carlin died at age 71.

I miss him.

I will share some quotes from George Carlin (May 12, 1937–June 22, 2008) that may be appreciated by readers of Progressives Chat.

Before sharing them, I want to note a couple things: The next blog topic will be posted on Thursday, June 25, 2020. And the next two weeks, Sundays, June 28 and July 5, 2020, will feature week-long blog topics to—in all honesty—give me a bit of a break from routine twice-a-week postings of blog topics. There will still be the availability for readers to post comments. Again—a break for me.


Here are some quotes from George Carlin:

“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking. They want obedient workers—people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets—and they own all the big media companies—so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.” 

“You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers—people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.”  

“Keep in mind—the news media are not independent. They are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class—the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn't want you to know something, it won’t be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up.” 

“If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.” 

“A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality. And it’s not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing. It is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon-flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.” 

“All the media and the politicians ever talk about is things that separate us—things that make us different from one another.” 

“Have you ever noticed that the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems is to declare war on it? We have the war on crime, the war on cancer, the war on drugs. But did you ever notice that we have no war on homelessness? You know why? Because there’s no money in that problem. No money to be made off of the homeless. If you can find a solution to homelessness where the corporations and politicians can make a few million dollars each, you will see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty damn quick!” 

“Did you ever stop to think about all the people we kill? They’re always people who tell us to live together in harmony and try to love one another: Jesus, Ghandi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John Lennon. They all said: ‘Try to live together peacefully.’ BAM! Right in the fuckin’ head! Apparently, we’re not ready for that!” 

“When you’re born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat.”

“If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem. You voted them in. You have no right to complain.”